President visits ground zero

President Bush talks to rescue workers Friday at the scene of the World Trade Center disasters.

Reuters photo by Win McNamee

Reuters photo by Win McNamee

Stevenson Swanson and Dan MihalopoulosTribune staff reporters.

In a visit that seemed to boost the morale of both weary rescue workers and a somber commander-in-chief, President Bush received a flag-waving reception Friday as he made his first trip to view the crumpled remains of the World Trade Center.

The president's visit capped a day of mourning and prayer in New York, a mood that was darkened further by leaden skies and occasionally heavy rain that slowed efforts to find survivors in the wreckage.

Bush arrived in midafternoon following a prayer service at Washington's National Cathedral. He donned a hardhat and toured the disaster site with state and city politicians, including Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, New York Gov. George Pataki, and Democratic U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Climbing onto a mound of rubble, Bush used a bullhorn to praise the dogged efforts of rescue workers, who greeted him with chants of "USA, USA."

"America today is on bended knee in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here, for the families who mourn," he said, his arm wrapped around the shoulder of a helmeted firefighter.

When a rescue worker at the rear of the crowd shouted, "We can't hear you," Bush's face lit up.

"I can hear you," the president said. "The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."

In heavily Democratic New York, the Republican president's visit was welcomed as a show of solidarity.

And his visit was the highlight of an otherwise demoralizing day for rescue workers. For the second day in a row, no survivors were found.

Only five people have been pulled alive from the wreckage since Tuesday, when two hijacked passenger airplanes slammed into the twin towers, setting off massive fires that caused the 1,350-foot skyscrapers to collapse.

Official death toll at 124

The city's official death toll stood at 124 late Friday, but the number of injured climbed to 4,300, many of them rescue workers hurt by shifting debris.

Across the city, churches and synagogues held special services to mourn the dead and pray for the more than 4,700 missing. A noontime mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue drew an estimated 2,500 people; in the evening, thousands packed Union Square in lower Manhattan for a candlelight vigil.

The nationwide observance of a day of mourning provided consolation to New Yorkers still reeling from the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.

"To hear that this is a day of mourning, and that the nation is mobilizing, I don't feel so alone in this loss," said a tearful Gary Lum as he watched television coverage in his family's Chinatown gift shop.

Lum's brother-in-law, a financial analyst, is among the missing.

As the city sought to resume its normal pace, New York's three airports reopened Friday. The airports were open briefly on Thursday before being shut down after nearly a dozen people of Middle Eastern descent were apprehended at the airports and held for questioning. All but one were released overnight, but Barry Mawn, head of the New York FBI office, refused to release further details.

Slowly back to normal

Broadway theaters and the Metropolitan Museum have already reopened. Others institutions, including the Staten Island Ferry and the New York Stock Exchange, plan to resume operations Monday.

In an effort to reduce confusion at the disaster scene, New York Fire Commissioner Robert Van Essen said volunteers who were not members of the New York Fire Department were being sent home.

That seemed to cut short efforts by 11 Chicago-area firefighters who drove to New York earlier in the week to help in the search for survivors.

The dejected Chicago crew had already packed up for the drive home when the crew's leaders arrived with good news: they would be needed Friday evening.

"We told them we could offer them an experienced crew that was ready to do whatever was needed," said Steve Chickerotis, a Chicago Fire Department deputy district chief. "They told us that they could use us and we should stay."

To help the estimated 14,000 businesses that have been displaced or shut down since Tuesday's attack, the state's economic development agency opened a midtown office Friday to provide a one-stop location where business owners could apply for low-interest loans and relocation assistance.

Among those seeking assistance was Gina Michael, owner of a day spa in the TriBeCa neighborhood, just north of the trade center.

"I'm really worried whether business will go on as usual," said Michael, whose spa has been closed since the attack. "Some New Yorkers are saying they're going to leave New York entirely."